Cost climbs by $2.8 billion for California bullet train
Source: AP
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The estimated cost for the first phase of California’s bullet train climbed by 35 percent on Tuesday to $10.6 billion, the latest increase for the ambitious project to run a high-speed rail line from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
The $2.8 billion price hike for a 119-mile (191-kilometer) segment in the Central Valley puts the entire cost of the project at roughly $67 billion, although officials said they hope to recover the newly announced costs later. It was projected to cost $40 billion in 2008 when voters approved bond financing.
“I want the public to count on us to tell the truth, whether it’s good, bad or ugly,” said Dan Richard, chair of the California High Speed Rail Authority’s board. “We’re going to do every single thing in our power to drive these costs down.”
Some of the fresh costs stem from trouble acquiring the rights of way for the track in the Central Valley. The authority entered into construction contracts before fully securing rights of way in all areas, a decision officials said they wouldn’t make again. The decision to enter into contracts quickly was partly due to the need to spend $2.5 billion in federal stimulus money by last fall.
Read more: https://apnews.com/0b5624b9a1684105ad48627686dda236
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Initial capital investment only, so far. There would then follow additional measurements of cost/benefit analysis of both immediate and long term savings of fuel, time, maintenance, etc.
So no... your total is lacking relevant data. 
Once in the habit of convincing ourselves why a thing cannot be done, it's difficult to achieve the balance of what can be done.
No mountain is climbable until it's been climbed. Everest never successfully scaled until 1950s. 4000 have ascended since.
Bullet train from Houston to Dallas takes another step forward
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"HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) --
It's the kind of train we've never seen in the Lone Star State, and it's called the Texas Bullet Train. It promises a ride between Houston and Dallas in 90 minutes, and it is one step closer to becoming a reality.
"I think it's a good idea because it's a four-hour drive, so it'd be nice for it to be just 90 minutes," said Cassie Jones.
In recent days, the U.S. Department of Transportation released its review called a Draft Environmental Impact Study, evaluating about a half dozen possible routes, but only recommending one."
snip
"Starting this Friday, Dec. 22, you can offer feedback online and for the following 60 days, until Feb. 20, 2018. The public feedback period will include 10 public hearings in the counties affected by the new train.
Texas Central, which is building the project, hopes to break ground on the project, at the earliest in late 2018 or early 2019, and construction is estimated to last four to five years."
http://abc13.com/travel/bullet-train-from-houston-to-dallas-takes-another-step-forward/2796070/
... that will supply them with more highly subsidized irrigation water, pennies on the dollar.
They also seem to think such projects will make more water, even in years of drought.
The rail project has become a symbol of wasteful government spending to them. They don't see their own demands for subsidized water and useless dams in the same light.
Many of these families arrived in California as Dust Bowl refugees yet they still believe a version of rain follows the plow. Many of them are prosperity gospel Christians too, so it's no coincidence they'd rather believe that God is providing them with irrigation water, not the U.S. or California taxpayer. They also voted for Trump, because of God. There's no arguing with those kind of beliefs.
Personally, I don't have a lot of respect for them, and they have none for me, even hate me as a California Liberal and environmental extremist. But I have to coexist with them.
I've also got my own prejudices to be aware of. Many of my ancestors were California dairy farmers who landed here in the nineteenth century. When I was a little kid, hearing family elders talk, the Okies and the Portuguese who settled the Central Valley abused their cows and horses, cheated their hired hands, and ruined the dairy market for everyone. A few years ago I was talking to a distant cousin, still a coastal dairy farmer, who was disparaging of the Central Valley dairies, but not with such blunt language. Her family's small dairy survives by targeting affluent consumers who are willing to pay more for organic and other specialty dairy products and beef.
I'm singling out the factory farm dairy industry because it uses huge amounts of water and has some of the greater environmental impacts. There are dietary and ethical considerations too. Beef and dairy products are not essential to a healthy human diet. I'd go so far as to remove milk from school lunches.
Maybe we should spend a few billion dollars annually buying out and retiring agricultural lands that use the greatest amount of water and have the worst environmental impacts.
Well, that's it. I've ruined any chance I ever had of holding any elected office in California... 
